


hell if i

by pockettreatpete



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Angst, M/M, like honestly what the actual fuck, otp: wait that's my word, where do these ideas even come from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-10-24 23:04:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pockettreatpete/pseuds/pockettreatpete
Summary: An immediate knot forms in Chasten’s stomach. That sounds… Not great. He’s about to ask another question Emily won’t have an answer to when he hears his name followed by applause, so he has to straighten up and swivel around and bound out on stage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like you all to remember I posted fluff like last week so nobody can yell at me for this. ALSO this is very short I promise another chapter like tomorrow.
> 
> All my love to A, N and C who have read through and offered feedback.

They’re waiting for Chasten to be introduced at a lunch event in Chicago when Emily gets a call. She listens intently for twenty seconds, then drops her phone in her lap and motions for Chasten so she can whisper in his ear. 

“No questions. Do the long version of your intro and I’ll have the moderator come in and announce that you unfortunately have to leave.”

Chasten frowns. “Why?”

“I’ll think of something,” she says with a handwave.

“No, Emily, the real ‘why’.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” she replies sheepishly. “I don’t know.”

She can’t be serious with this crap. “Excuse me?”

“That was Lis on the phone telling me not to let you take questions and get you straight in the car and she’ll see you in the office. That’s all I know.” 

An immediate knot forms in Chasten’s stomach. That sounds… Not great. He’s about to ask another question Emily won’t have an answer to when he hears his name followed by applause, so he has to straighten up and swivel around and bound out on stage. 

Once he’s out there it’s good, he can forget about whatever’s waiting in the car. He’s keenly aware people will be disappointed that he’s not sticking around to answer questions, so in addition to his normal intro he tries to hit the things people usually ask about: Education and arts in particular, what he’d want to work on as first gentleman, a couple of silly and endearing anecdotes about Peter. 

Disappointment descends on the room like a physical presence when Amanda announces he has to leave early. He tries to hide his wince, tells the room he’s sorry and that he’ll be back in town for another event soon, which he’s pretty sure is a lie. 

When they get in the car, Chris is waiting in the back seat.

“Hope you guys don’t mind if I hitch a ride,” he says and Chasten can tell he’s really trying hard to make like everything is fine. 

Emily refuses to give him back his phone. The knot in his stomach grows. It has to be really fucking bad, but he can’t for the life of him understand what could possibly have happened. Emily is clearly uncomfortable, but cites orders from Lis and Mike. He asks if she knows and she claims not to. 

“What about you,” Chasten asks Chris. 

“I know but I’m not allowed to say. I’m sorry, Chasten,” Chris says and he really looks like he means it. Emily leaves her own phone in her bag along with his for the drive. They talk about music and pretend Chris isn’t behind them, e-mailing like his life depends on it. 

There’s traffic out of Chicago, but Chasten and Chris are the first ones to take a seat in Mike’s office. Peter is flying back from South Carolina and Lis is apparently flying in from New York, and this has to be cataclysmic because it’s fucking terrible time management having everyone converge on South Bend on a Thursday afternoon. At least there’s sandwiches, so that’s something. 

“What’s going on, Mike,” he says but it doesn’t come out like a question, which is just as well because Mike shakes his head a little and says “Lis wants us to wait until everyone’s here.”

Fortunately they don’t have to wait long for the familiar _click-clack_ of Lis’ impossibly high heels through the offices. She drops her bag unceremoniously on the table and starts talking to Chasten before she’s even turned fully around: 

“I know you’re pissed and honestly I agree it’s not fucking ideal to keep you in the dark like this, but I promise you will understand.”

The knot in Chasten’s stomach has been growing for more than three hours and he’s ready to lash out hard, but then Lis looks him square in the eye and he sees that she is _genuinely upset _ and the idea of what could make Lis fucking Smith upset scares him so profoundly that all of the bile he’d been ready to throw at her just sort of evaporates. She shakes her head a little, but he doesn’t know what it means. He’s about to ask but there’s suddenly commotion in the outer office; Peter is here. 

He walks into the office and immediately veers right and leans over the arm of the couch to kiss Chasten. When he stands up straight he surveys the room warily. Chris is closing the door, Lis is waiting by the conference table and Mike is perched on the edge of his desk. There’s a moment of total silence and Chasten is about to _lose it_. 

“Well, will someone for the love of God get the thing up,” Lis barks and Chris lunges for his laptop. Peter goes to sit by the conference table and beckons for Chasten to join him. 

“Do you know what this is,” Chasten says quietly as he sits down. 

Peter shakes his head. “Nina wouldn’t tell me,” he says ruefully. “They just shoveled me on the plane and took my phone.” He doesn’t look as nervous as Chasten feels though, which makes him wonder if maybe he’s being too uptight. 

Chasten looks out through the window to the bullpen and sees Nina, Emily and Saralena huddled around the same desk, looking very intense. His view is obscured when somebody – Mike – pulls the blinds closed. 

“Okay,” Lis says, “I’m sorry for all the fucking cloak-and-dagger shit but we– ” she indicates Mike, Chris and herself “– thought it would be best if we were all in one place for this. There’s a video working its way around the internet. So far it seems to be contained to like 4chan and Reddit, but it’s been building for a few hours and I’ll bet it’s a matter of literal minutes before it’s everywhere. I have people working on tracing it and doing all kinds of forensic investigative shit I don’t understand to find out…” She trails off, then she rallies: “Okay, I have no fucking idea what they might be able to find out, but I’ve got really fucking good people working on it. We took a still so Emily and the travel team can get on to finding out where and when this was taken. What we need from you two right now is to watch it, see if you can remember the where and when, and verify it’s real, that as far as you can see it hasn’t been altered. I have no reason to think it’s a deepfake or something, but I’d rather be sure.” 

Oh fuck. Suddenly, impossibly, it seems fairly clear to Chasten roughly what is going to be on screen in a minute. There’s no way it... How? They’ve never... He glances over at Pete, and by the tense clench of his jaw and the confusion in his eyes, he’s probably doing the same math. Seriously, what the fuck? Chasten closes his eyes for a second when Chris leans over and presses ‘play’.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s surreal to watch himself on screen, and he tends to avoid it if he can. Now he can’t, because he’s the only person on screen, sitting in bed reading. He doesn’t recognize the hotel room, except in a dull sense of ‘yeah, I’ve probably been there.’ It could be any one of a hundred hotel rooms they’ve spent the night in over the last several months. A door opens and closes, and Peter walks into frame, damp-haired and wearing only a towel. 

Chasten wants to reach over and grab Peter’s hand but he feels frozen. This can’t be what it looks like, it just can’t. He’s acutely aware of Lis studying their faces as they watch, and that Chris is hovering somewhere behind them. He chances a glance back over his shoulder at Mike, who is still perched on the edge of his desk, eyes fixed on a point on the far wall. He looks back at the screen, tries to gauge when this might be based on the state of Peter’s hair and what weight he himself looks to be. He can chart the campaign in pounds lost, and this must be fairly recent. 

On screen, Chasten smiles and puts his book down, extending a hand in invitation to Peter, who drops the towel and joins him. Peter doesn’t flinch at the sight of his bare ass on camera, but Chasten can hear him inhaling sharply through his nose. This can’t be happening, it can’t be real, it’s too absurd.

On-screen Peter straddles Chasten’s lap and kisses him, Chasten’s arms enveloping him gently, and now it’s real Chasten’s turn to inhale in a gasp, because he has no problem seeing it the way _they will_, and Peter looks like _the woman_ right now, being held this way by Chasten, and that’s going to be an Issue. A homophobic and misogynistic Issue, but an Issue nonetheless.

“I missed you,” says Chasten on the screen.

“I missed you too,” Peter says, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Chasten’s neck, and fuck everything, the audio is so clear even the _smack_ of the kiss is audible, which means every sound they make will be too. 

Suddenly, something clicks. He _does_ remember this night. He is almost certain they had opened a field office that day, but he also remembers what that night was like and his insides twist because now he’s pretty sure he remembers what’s coming. He doesn’t want to, but the tape plays forward in his head anyways. 

On the screen Chasten pulls a move and flips them both over, moving down Peter’s body to–– Chasten slaps the laptop shut. 

“We’re not watching the rest of it. It’s real, we know what happens next, we’re done.” He wants to leave, he wants to leave right the _fuck_ now.

“Chasten,” Lis says, exasperated. “You do need to watch all of it, we have to make sure.”

“Why,” he demands wildly. “You’ve all watched it!” His brain can’t even process this. The closest people they have in their daily lives right now have seen this and he can’t ––

“Yeah, but we weren’t there for the live event, so it’d be kind of hard for us to know if anything’s been altered.” 

“I haven’t,” Mike says. “I haven’t watched it.” 

Lis turns on him with daggers flying, “What the fuck, Mike?” 

“I don’t need to watch it to be able to do my job today,” he says dryly. “If I need it to do my job tomorrow, I’ll watch it tomorrow. Right now, the people who need to know what’s on it are you two and whoever else on comms and legal, and the people who are tracing it. The rest of us, Pete and Chasten should be able to look in the eye without seeing… that.” 

“That’s sweet of you,” Lis replies begrudgingly. It sounds like the word ‘sweet’ is hurting her. 

“It’s in New Hampshire,” Chasten says, feeling increasingly sure. “We’d opened a field office that day, though I can’t remember where.”

“That narrows it down a lot,” Lis says, snapping her fingers at Chris who is already jotting down something in a notebook. He tears out the page, cracks the office door and waves Saralena over. 

“Give this to Emily, she’ll know what to do with it.”

“Okay,” Lis says when the door is closed again. “Let’s get cracking.” 

Chasten wants to die. He genuinely, deeply, wants to die, rather than sit here in Mike’s office and watch himself and Peter have sex on the screen of Chris’ laptop. He remembers this night now, he knows what’s about to happen. He knows what this will look like. He knows what it’ll sound like. And he’s already seeing it from the outside and it looks bad. Bad, bad, bad. 

Mike stands up. “I want to gather the staff and give them a heads up on what’s going on, and make sure they’re doing it in Chicago too.” 

Lis nods, waits for him to leave and then leans over and opens the laptop back up. 

It’s like an out of body experience, sitting there and watching himself on screen blowing Peter. He can’t seem to focus his eyes properly, it’s like he isn’t wearing his glasses, but he hears it, the unattractive sounds of the act itself mingling with Peter’s breathy moans. His whole body aches with the absurd, outlandish, fucked-up idea that Peter’s private pleasure is out there now, for everybody to see. This space that they have created for themselves, where Chasten is safe and Peter lets go, this space that has been _sacred_ to them, is being blown open and it hurts.

“Turn over,” Chasten in the clip says, and yeah, this is what he knew was coming. He closes his eyes, because he can’t fucking watch himself eat Peter’s ass, he just— can’t. He hears this too, though, crystal _fucking_ clear, and he hates it. Hates how good he is at it, how much Peter fucking loves it, how vocal he is about his appreciation, hates himself for having introduced Peter to this in the first place. 

He feels tears escaping and tries his best not to sniffle. Peter notices anyway, apparently, because his hand lands on Chasten’s thigh and then nudges carefully but insistently on Chasten’s hand resting there until he lifts it and lets Peter’s get underneath. Chasten opens his eyes and glances over quickly, but Peter still looks made of stone. 

Chasten wonders, trying to distract himself for the sake of his sanity, if Peter knows it’s over now. No matter how you look at it, it’s decidely _un_presidential to be seen wailing and whimpering while your husband eats your ass, thrashing under the firm grip holding you down so said husband can drive you even crazier. God, that was such a _exceptional_ night, one of the ones he’s thought about later when he’s been lonely and horny. Fuck fuck _fuck_. 

“Please,” Peter says on screen, and real Peter flinches next to Chasten. He holds on to Peter’s hand harder, tries to reassure him in this small way. On the screen, Chasten is making quick work of prep, nudging Peter to turn over on his back again, pushing his thighs up and sinking inside with a deep groan. Chasten shrinks back into his chair. He’s never been embarrassed by anything they do together, and he hates that this is something to be embarrassed about now. 

Peter and Chasten in the video are holding still, faces inches away from each other, and breathing together in long slow shuddering breaths, and Chasten breaks down a little more. He doesn’t care that Lis can see him cry, that Chris can hear him sniffle. He wants to die he wants to die he wants to die. Anything to not have this out where millions and millions of people can see. He doesn’t even care that it’s his own naked ass to the camera right now, but Peter’s slack-jawed pleasure is _his_ and it’s not supposed to be for the world. It’s his, it’s theirs, and now it’s not anymore, and he wants to die. 

It’s an unbearable thought, that by tonight people on the internet are going to be making fun of every aspect of this: Chasten’s paunch (though it’s smaller than it used to be), his ass, his widow’s peak, Peter’s hairy legs hitched up towards his chest. Their sex noises. Chasten eating Pete’s ass. Literally the most intimate part of their lives is going to be on display for everyone to ridicule... and they will. The thought pushes more tears out of him, and he can feel himself about to fall into hysterics. 

He takes a deep breath, tries to get a fucking grip on himself, and notes almost dispassionately that they’re getting close. His right hand is between himself and Peter, jerking him off. Peter comes with a deep groan, and Chasten thrusts once, twice, and comes. Thank God, it’s almost over. 

There’s a series of long, slow, deep kisses that makes Chasten’s stomach ache, then Chasten on the screen withdraws carefully and gets up off the bed, revealing the proverbial money shot: Peter spread out on his back, blissed out and loose-limbed, messy with his own come. 

The video ends and so does Chasten’s restraint. He stands up so quickly his chair falls over and sprints to the bathroom. So much for the sandwich. He retches until there’s nothing left and then some, bile burning his throat. When he gets up and out of the stall, Saralena is waiting by the sink with hand sanitizer and mouthwash. She doesn’t say anything, just hands him the bottles and takes them back when he’s done with them. 

“Thanks,” he remembers to say, because there’s a good boy under there somewhere. She nods and holds the door for him. 

His face burns when he walks past the staffers who’ve just started to disperse after Mike’s announcement. They must all have seen him sprinting the other way, so they all know where he’s been and why. He wants to not care but he does. 

What the fuck do they do now?


	3. Chapter 3

Chasten feels a little more collected, a little more in control, after hurling his guts out. Then, he walks right into a fight already in progress. Mike is back, standing off to the side with Chris. They’re both watching Lis and Peter warily, looking like they’re trying to decide when to intervene. 

“Look, we do need to have a conversation about some of the optics here,” Lis says.

“No.” Anyone who doesn’t know Peter could be excused for thinking he doesn’t look particularly upset, but Chasten has no problem seeing the signs that his husband is close to losing it. He wonders if there’s a way he can get everybody out for like five minutes so they can take a breath. “Absolutely not.”

“Pete,” Lis starts but Peter holds up a hand and she stops. 

“I will have the discussion of how we meet this and how we move on. I am not entertaining a discussion about how to counter the optics of specific acts, or––” his voice takes on a tone of distaste “––_who was on top_. If that’s a discussion that absolutely needs to be had you’re welcome to have it in any room I’m not in.”

Peter is raising his voice. Yeah, he’s spiraling. Chasten swallows. He really does prefer not having to be the husband who has his shit together, but he supposes it had to come to this at some point. 

“Pete,” Lis starts again, but Peter interrupts her, his voice taking on a tinge of hysteria: 

“I bottom, Lis, who gives a fuck?”

“You know who gives a fuck, Peter,” Chasten says, and Peter spins to look at him. He’s breathing hard, but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps eye contact with Chasten, as if the connection is the only thing keeping him alive. _I want to die_, Chasten’s mind reminds him. _So does Peter_. Peter wouldn’t be talking he way he is if he wasn’t inches away from losing it entirely. 

“That’s not a bad line, actually,” Lis says pensively. “Not for you, obviously, totally off-brand and Beto’s got the market cornered on profanity, but it’s not a bad line. _The Buttigieg campaign declined to comment on the record_,” she ad-libs, “_but a senior adviser to the campaign said ‘So he bottoms, who gives a fuck?’_”

Peter closes his eyes, clenches his jaw and shakes his head. Chasten does something he hates – hates – to do, and pulls rank. 

“Hey, guys, can we have the room for ten minutes?” A thought strikes him and he wants to die even more. “We have to call our mothers.” 

Lis’ eyes widen. “Fuck. Yeah.” They leave quickly, leaving Chasten alone with Peter, which feels vaguely like being left alone with a ticking time bomb right now. 

“Babe.” 

Peter barrels into his arms and they stay in the hug for a long time. Chasten can feel the tension ravaging Pete’s entire body, but stubbornly holds on all the same, hoping to leech out just a little bit of it. 

“I want to kill someone,” Peter whispers into Chasten’s shoulder. 

“I want to die,” Chasten replies, tearing up all over again, and he _can’t_, he has to call his mom. 

He kisses Peter’s cheek and withdraws from the hug. Time to deliver on being the husband with his shit together. “Your mom first or mine?”

This isn’t something someone should ever have to do, calling their mother to tell them something like this. Anne takes it well, of course, because she’s never in her life handled anything poorly. Shocked, dismayed, but calm. Mom cries. A lot. Asks a dozen questions he doesn’t know how to answer. Tells him she’s sorry, and she doesn’t elaborate but they all know what the apology encompasses. Chasten fleetingly hopes Fox fucking News at least pays Rhyan well. They hang up and the office is left in silence. 

“Well that’s the worst thing I’ve ever had to do,” he says, but he can’t get the tone right for a joke so it falls flat. Peter gives a quick half-smile anyway. 

“What’s the plan,” Peter says while the team files back in.

“You guys should obviously lay low for a couple of days, cancel the weekend swing,” Mike says. 

“No,” Peter replies, immediate and decisive. “We obviously won’t make it back to South Carolina today, but I want to keep the schedule starting tomorrow night.”

“Pete, for fuck’s sake, what are you going to say to a room full of South Carolinians who’ve just heard there’s a video of you having your ass eaten out?” Lis’ voice is at its sharpest and Chasten winces, but Peter deadpans in return:

“I’ll tell them it feels great and they should try it.”

There is a prolonged moment of shocked silence before Lis explodes in a loud cackle. The others laugh too, and even Chasten smiles a little. Trust Peter to make people feel at ease even now, when he’s half-crazy with humiliation and anger. 

“Okay,” Lis says, collecting herself but still smiling. “Three-pronged approach: Damage control, striking back and turning to our advantage.” She counts them off on her fingers. “Damage control: Legal has been on it for a couple of hours and what they’re liking most so far – my suggestion – is you copyright the motherfucker.” 

Chasten can feel himself gaping. That’s so smart. Lis grins at him. 

“You like that? Yeah, it’s fucking brilliant. They swear we’re going to be able to file by EOB today, and by this time tomorrow we could be golden. Nobody can get it on TV, we can sue anyone who tries to share it on the internet. We won’t get all of it but we’ll get a lot. Oh,” she looks at Peter and sing-songs, “I’m gonna spend so-o much of your campaign cash on lawye-ers.” 

Peter laughs a little, and Chasten wonders if Peter can feel the immediate horror of it all start to recede into the background a little too, just like he can. 

“Striking back,” Lis continues: “Legal is also working on building the lawsuit we’re going to slap on whatever fucking asshole did this, I have people working on finding them, and we’re preparing the police report to file as soon as we find out the right jurisdiction. I’m guessing we’re looking at Russians or Republicans and I hope to fuck it’s Republicans because they’re a lot more fun to fight.”

The guys are nodding and _shit_, Chasten hasn’t even considered it could be fucking _Russians_. Peter is looking at Lis with a familiar half-awestruck, half-amused gaze. Normally, Lis can make five miracles happen before the breakfast she doesn’t eat, but this is a six-miracle day and she really could be pulling it off. 

“Turning this whole fucking mess to our advantage: I’m still working on the finer points of this but definitely the data privacy plan will have to be moved up, and we have to beef it the fuck up. Nobody gets to come close to outbidding us on data privacy. Then, if it’s the Russians who did this we’re hitting election reform _so_ fucking hard, if it’s a PAC we’re hitting democratic reform. Full victim tour in the media early next week, then in a couple of weeks you two do a Sixty Minutes interview looking extremely buttoned up and respectable and talking about how painful this has been for you, an op-ed from Chasten about online harassment, hit whoever tries to pull some homophobic shit.” 

Mike nods. “The data privacy plan was as good as done last I heard, but I’ll check with Sonal and we can take a look at where we can improve it.”

“Good,” Lis says. “This thing isn’t over, and we won’t let it be over for fucking _this_.”

Chasten licks his lips. He feels dizzy and tries to remember when he ate. Then like lightning a thought strikes him: “Revenge porn,” he says. 

Lis squints a little but Peter looks at him like he hung the moon and the stars and Peter didn’t know he could do that. 

“Yes,” he says. “A national revenge porn law. What just happened to us happens to women all over the country every day. I think like forty – forty-one? – states have laws against it but it’s gotta be a national law. Good.” 

“People,” Lis shoots in, “Don’t say women. Say ‘people’ and then specify, ‘mostly women’.”

“Okay,” Mike says. “This sounds good. We’ll get to work on all of it. You should get on the phone with Zev and work on some new language for the stump.”

“Yeah,” Peter nods. “One more thing for legal,” he adds, suddenly sounding darker again. “Have them take a look at New Hampshire state law, the real archaic stuff, and local ordinances too, when we find out where it is. Let’s make sure we didn’t actually break any laws before I go out there and say we didn’t.”

Mike bites his lip. “Yeah.” 

“One more thing,” Lis says. “When you’re on the road and together, how many nights out of ten do you have sex?” 

Peter’s face shuts down remarkably fast, and he’s about to say something he’ll regret later, Chasten can tell, so he interjects as quickly as he can. 

“Five, maybe?” 

“And is it always––” She’s searching for words, which some part of Chasten finds desperately funny because Lis is the person who unabashedly asked them who tops, and whether they were into “kinky shit that could make trouble”, in their first meeting. “That vigorous,” she says finally. 

“What?” 

“You gotta wonder whether these fucking asshats just got real fucking lucky with their one camera mount or if they have been surveilling you over time to get the good stuff.”

A chasm opens in Chasten’s gut. That’s an extremely good point. They don’t usually do that on the road, not the whole… everything, and Chasten isn't always on top. There could be all sorts of tapes out there, that someone has, that someone could be planning to use. Someone who’s been watching them for weeks, maybe longer. A dizzy spell hits him again, and when he comes to Peter is helping him sit down on the couch, his eyes deep pools of concern.

“Sorry,” Chasten says. “They can’t just have gotten lucky. You’re right.” 

Lis shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it. Get some food in him,” she tells Chris, “and then come help me call journalists to tell them if their networks run any part of this illegally captured video they’re never getting a one-on-one with Pete again.” 

“Okay,” Mike says. “Let’s get to work.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter literally would not exist if someone very special hadn't taken time out of their life to look at a first draft and recognize the same problems with it that I did – and then found a way to solve them that I couldn't. Totally lost without you, crimson.
> 
> As always, NeverJustBusiness did their beta thing - thank you!

Chasten sits on the couch in Mike’s office, slowly eating one of the sandwiches from the lunch tray, not entirely sure he’ll be able to keep anything down. He’s watching his Twitter feed, scared to dip into his slowly building mentions. It takes about half an hour from their last meeting for allusions of the video to start leaking into his timeline, then outright references and descriptions and after an hour and fifteen minutes his timeline is absolutely packed with words like “sex tape” and “explicit sex” and “rimjob”, and his phone has been ringing so often he’s had to put it in flight mode. He’s starting to feel sick again, so he closes the Twitter app and tosses the phone on the cushion next to him. He’s not sure how long he sits still, breathing with the abject horror of what’s happening. 

He felt so hopeful just an hour and a half ago, when they’d all been standing right there, plotting and planning to take back the narrative, but sitting alone while everybody’s out there doing the work, he feels so fucking bad. He blinks a couple of times, trying his hardest not to cry, because he’s honestly already done enough of that today. 

They’ve worked so hard, all of them. He’s spent months knee-deep in worry that he’s going to step out of line and fuck things up for Peter, and he hasn’t, he hasn’t _once_, and now they’re probably fucked anyway, no matter what Lis says, because of their sex life. Because their lives are lived in hotel rooms now and they can’t keep it in their pants between stopovers at home. Because Chasten can’t. Because Chasten met a virgin four years ago and has spent the intervening time just fucking _debauching him_. Because making Peter more and more excited, helping him discover more and more things he likes, that drive him _wild_, is Chasten’s favorite thing in the world, and he’s made it Peter’s favorite thing too. 

There’s a soft knock on the door and Emily looks in. He nods, so she comes in and closes the door behind her. She doesn’t quite come near enough to take his hand, but she looks like she wants to. 

“We found the right hotel really quickly, thanks to you,” she says. “Nashua. They’re filing the police report now, and they sent a press release about an hour ago with the legal stuff, so the media should calm down a little. Everybody’s working, but Pete said to tell you he’ll be ready to head home soon. The security guys just finished up at your house, apparently they didn’t find anything, so that’s good.”

He nods, because he’s not sure he can talk without choking up hard. 

“Did you see Mike’s email?” 

He shakes his head. She pulls up her phone and hands it to him. “You should.” 

His eyes cloud over as he skims what Mike has written to the whole staff. “_...violated Pete and Chasten’s privacy in a revolting way...in good spirits considering the circumstances...encourage you all not to watch the video...look all of us in the eye without fear..._”

He is reminded, through the tears that are flowing freely now, why he loves Mike so much, why Peter does. Unflinching loyalty like Mike’s is hard to come by. There’s another knock on the door and Peter pokes his head in. He starts saying something but stops when he sees Chasten is crying. He gives Emily a little nod, and she leaves, closing the door behind her with a soft _click_. Peter sits down next to him and holds him, much more gently than he deserves, until his tears dry out. 

They hold hands in the car heading home. Once they’re inside and have greeted Buddy and Truman, Chasten realizes that they have nothing to do. He is supposed to be on his way to the West Coast, and Peter is still meant to be in South Carolina. 

“Hey,” Peter says. “It’s still pretty early. How about beer and Risk?” 

He’s right, it’s barely six, and beer and Risk sounds _so_ good. Except. 

“How about whiskey and Risk?” 

Peter makes a sympathetic face. “I don’t think getting drunk solves any of our problems tonight. It just makes tomorrow worse.” 

Chasten nods. He doesn’t like it but Peter’s right. 

The complete surrealism of their situation is really not lost on him. They both leave their phones on the kitchen table in unspoken agreement, and settle down in the living room with the game between them. It all feels… Unsettlingly normal, in a situation that is anything but. 

It’s good, actually, to just push everything away and focus on something completely different. By the time they’ve finished their takeout and Chasten has won a decisive victory, it's late-ish but not quite bedtime. They clear the game away, and settle down on the couch together. Chasten sinks into the crook of Peter’s arm, closes his eyes and sighs. They are going to have to talk at some point, but he’s not sure he has the words. 

“I’m trying to find a way to start this conversation,” Peter says thirty seconds later, and Chasten tries to conceal a smile at their synchronicity. 

“Yeah,” he replies. There’s quiet between them for a while longer. He hears Peter take a breath as if to start talking, first once, then once more. Then, abruptly, Peter is tapping his arm to move, and is getting up. 

“I have to,” he says as he walks towards the stairs. 

“You have to _what_?” 

Peter doesn’t answer, just walks faster, almost running upstairs, taking the stairs three steps at a time. 

Chasten is about to follow him when the bathroom door slams shut. A minute later he hears the shower running, and slumps back on the couch. He has no idea what’s going on and he hates that. The idea that Peter needs to get clean, that it had to happen right away, is unexpectedly sharp and makes him want to cry again. It makes sense that Peter feels dirty, but it doesn’t hurt any less. 

A sudden forceful crash from upstairs, and then two more, brings him to his feet, and he’s upstairs before he’s even sure what happened. He knocks but doesn’t wait for a response before tearing the door open and registering several things at once. One, their nice wooden hamper is no longer nice and technically at this point more firewood than hamper. Two, they’re going to have to get the ridiculously expensive contractor back in to replace a sizeable section of wall tiles. Three, Peter is sitting in the tub, still wearing his underwear under the running water, his face buried in his hands and his shoulders shaking. 

“Peter,” Chasten says, gingerly sidestepping splinters of rubberwood and ceramic to make his way to him. “Peter,” he tries again, to no avail. 

He takes off his glasses, then steps into the tub and sits down next to Peter, slipping his arm over his husband’s shoulders. Peter leans into him, still crying, his sobs shaking through both of them. 

Peter’s tears run out at about the same time as the warm water does. Chasten gets a towel and dries Peter gently, peeling off his soaked boxers and socks and finding him a t-shirt and pajama pants. Peter leans against the vanity, staring blankly while Chasten gets out of his own wet clothes, and then starts picking up the wreckage while Chasten puts on dry ones. He makes a face at the shattered tiles. “That’s going to be expensive,” he says, trying for levity but falling miserably short. 

“It’s fine,” Chasten says, getting a trash bag and joining Peter on the floor to pick up. 

“No, it’s not. None of this is fine,” Peter replies, jamming pieces of wood in the trash bag. He stills, looks at the floor. “I’m so sorry, Chasten.” 

His wonderful, sweet, too-responsible-for-his-own-good husband. Chasten wants to cry too, but instead he runs his fingers across Peter’s cheek. “They’re just things, babe.”

“No,” Peter says, looking up and meeting Chasten’s eyes. “I’m sorry this is all happening to you.”

What? “Peter, what do you mean?”

Peter looks down again, picking at the wood splinters. 

“I’m the one running for president. I doubt our sex life would be of interest to people without the campaign.”

Oh, Peter. Of course he’d feel guilty. Chasten’s heart aches for him. “We’re in this together,” he says, hoping he can convince his husband through sheer force of will. Peter shakes his head.

“This is on me. My ambition opened us up to this and God knows what else. Now we have to live the rest of our lives with this out in the world. And I can’t believe I’ve done that to you. I can’t––” He bites off the sentence, clenches his jaw, closes his eyes. 

Chasten hesitates, unsure if he can face telling Peter what he knows in his heart. He has to remind himself that this is what they do, they share all of it. Good and bad. “Peter, I’ve always told you that you should run for president. If anything, this is my fault. _I_ did this to _you_.”

Peter opens his eyes and cocks his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Deep breaths, Chasten reminds himself. “I think half of the tweets about this, probably, include the word ‘rimjob’,” he says, and he can hear his voice shaking. “I did that to you, I made you this person who likes that. And now it’s all out there, people have seen that, heard that, and that’s my fault.”

Peter’s eyes narrow, then he reaches out for Chasten’s hand. “You didn’t make me a person who likes that. You made me _aware_ that I like it. And I’m not ashamed of anything we do together, even if I’d rather not have shared it with the whole world.”

How can he be so dismissive of what Chasten knows, _knows_ to be true? 

“You were a virgin.” 

A shadow passes over Peter’s face – they’ve had versions of this conversation before, more than once, though not for a long time now. 

“Yes, I was,” he says evenly. “You didn’t corrupt me, Chasten. I was thirty-three. I’d been to war.” He smiles wryly. “I had the internet. I just didn’t have any practical experience. I was ready for a relationship, and I was lucky enough to find you, for which I’m thankful every day. Among the things you brought to this relationship was more experience than I had. You shared it with me, and because of you I know more about who I am and what I like. There’s nothing about your experience or what we do together that either of us need to be ashamed of. I wasn’t clean, and you didn’t make me dirty.”

Chasten tears up, a-fucking-gain. It has to be the tenth time today, but how can he not when his husband has tried to tear a room apart in his anger but still knows exactly what Chasten needs to hear? He takes a deep, deep breath and tries to calm down. He doesn’t realize Peter is still holding his hand until he lets go. 

“Let me clean up this mess I made and then we can get to bed, okay? I think some sleep could do us good.”

“I’ll help you,” Chasten says. “We clean up each other’s messes together in this house.”

Peter’s smile is worth the splinter in his thumb.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Dunyazad9 for the Morning Joe segment! Appreciate it and you!

For the first time in weeks, he wakes up on his own, not by an alarm or a ringing phone or – as has happened on a couple of embarrassing occasions – Emily or Jess knocking on his hotel room door because he’s slept through the other two. At first he’s not sure where he is, and it takes a few seconds for the whole previous day to flood his consciousness. The video. The panic. The plan. Peter breaking down. Tears upon tears upon tears. As he blinks himself awake, he realizes the low autumn sun is peeking through the cracks in the curtain. For a second his adrenaline skyrockets and he sits up, before remembering the rest. He’s not late. His California swing is cancelled, he’s going to South Carolina with Peter tonight. 

He’s about to sink back on his pillow and breathe when he realizes the TV was just turned on in the next room, so he pads out to see what’s up. 

_“...and his husband in a hotel room in New Hampshire. We’ve all seen it flying around online, it has been sent to our newsroom anonymously, but we've been threatened with legal action if we share or describe to you what is in it.”_ Chasten recognizes Joe Scarborough’s voice before he gets in the room. _“The Buttigieg campaign has been very clear that this video has been illegally captured, that we’re not talking about a, heh, home video that has gotten into the wrong hands. We’re talking illegal surveillance, invasion of privacy.”_ Peter is standing in front of the tv, still in his running clothes, clutching the remote. 

“Are you sure you want to watch this, babe,” Chasten says, laying a hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter pauses the tv, freezing Joe’s face in an unpleasant expression. 

“Lis texted that I should,” Peter says, half turning towards him. “You don’t have to.”

“I’ll watch with you,” Chasten says, sitting down on the edge of the couch, bracing himself. Peter presses play and sits down on the worn coffee table. 

_“I haven't watched it,”_ Joe says. _“Not my cup of tea. But Mika has, and I understand it's pretty steamy.”_

Mika actually fans herself, for fuck’s sake, and takes on a dreamy look. _“Yes. They are a handsome couple and it's obvious they are very much in love, Joe.”_

Chasten rolls his eyes. “Mika Brzezinski would eat you alive if she got the chance,” he says, and Peter chuckles. 

The transition in the segment is awkward, probably because there seems to be so much they want to say but legally can’t. The panel theorizes that whoever leaked the video intended to weaken Peter as potential commander-in-chief, and then pivots to interview a military historian about the historical precedent for gay military commanders, which ends up being informative and respectful in a way Chasten isn’t sure he expected. He definitely didn’t expect to see clips from two other morning shows’ similarly oblique takes on The Video, extending sympathy (and, yes, okay, also pity) instead of disdain. One anchor even goes on a diatribe about how many things the public’s attention robs from people who seek public office, and how Peter and Chasten shouldn’t have to accept that their intimacy and marital privacy are among those things.

When they get to the office by mid-morning he’s actually pretty uplifted (ignoring his Twitter mentions helped), and even more by every person who makes a point of looking him in the eye to tell him ‘good morning’. Mike’s work, for sure. Peter talks to Lis for a few minutes, then kisses Chasten gently before heading down the block to get in a few hours of mayoring. 

“Hey,” Peter says before he goes. “You don’t have to come to South Carolina. It’s completely up to you.” 

It’s the third time he’s said it this morning, and if Chasten didn’t know better, like in his heart know better, he’d think Peter didn’t want him to come. He does know better though, in the clear light of day he knows that Peter is trying to spare him. He doesn’t want to be spared, wants to put himself between Peter and all the ugliness he’s going to face. The problem, he knows, is that Peter feels the same way. But they can’t protect each other from this, so they’ll just have to face it. At least they can do it together. 

“I know,” Chasten says, for the third time. Peter nods, and faced with his look of absolute pride Chasten feels like a plant thriving in sunlight, angling towards it and reaching for more. 

They only have the one event on Friday night, and a gaggle after. “It’s better to get it over with,” Lis reasoned, “take every one of their fucking questions until they’re tuckered the fuck out.” Peter agreed, but during the flight he does that thing he sometimes does where he quiets down so far he almost looks like he’s not breathing. (A mean part of Chasten would say he looks like a robot in low power mode.) By the time they’re in the car heading to the venue Chasten is honestly worried. 

_Is this a bad idea_, he texts Lis. 

_Boy is a game-day player_, she texts back. 

_Not when he’s like this_, he insists.

_Especially when he’s fckn like this._

He’s half-typed a response pointing out he knows his husband better than she does when she taps his shoulder. ‘Watch this,’ she mouths when he turns around. 

“Mr. Mayor, what is your comment on the video that has been going around the past thirty or so hours?”

Peter looks at her, and his face falls into more normal folds, thank God. 

“It is an unconscionable invasion of my husband’s and my privacy, and it is untenable that the most intimate parts of our lives are seen as somehow fair game for exploitation in an election campaign. But at the same time, this is about much more than my husband and me. People, especially women, all over the country, face situations like this every day. Images or videos of them at their most intimate and vulnerable are disseminated on the internet by people wanting to hurt them. Today, Chasten and I stand with––”

“Okay, down, boy,” Lis says, sticking her tongue out at Chasten. “QE-fucking-D.” She laughs when Peter raises a confused eyebrow. It’s all so obscenely normal-feeling, and it crashes with Chasten’s all-encompassing sense of abnormality. 

During the event, Chasten stands in the wings, listening to Peter. The new language they added to the stump is good, referring vaguely to “recent events” before pivoting to data security and revenge porn. He answers questions from the fish bowl after, and when the moderator, a young local organizer, picks the bowl up and leaves the stage, Peter is supposed to throw up a rousing sign-off and get the crowd to its feet. 

“It’s been a tough 36 hours,” he starts. Chasten is almost sure this is off the cuff, not what Peter wrote with Zev yesterday, and feels his heart rate rising. “Coming out here, meeting people, knowing they may have seen the video… It’s hard. I know the rap on me is that I can seem unflappable, maybe even unfeeling. I’m not. It’s tough, actually a lot tougher than I thought it would be, to stand here in front of you tonight. It feels like something has been stolen from Chasten and me, something very precious, and we know we can’t ever get it back.” Peter’s voice goes thick. “And that’s painful.” Peter pauses, and Chasten knows he’s fighting tears. 

The audience is dead silent, then a man stands up, probably around Dad’s age. He’s shouting at the top of his lungs. “We’re with you, Pete!” 

A smattering of ‘yeah’s and ‘that’s right’s sound from around the room, and before long the whole auditorium is on their feet, applauding and shouting. Peter’s right hand goes to press against his stomach the way it does when he’s humbled by a warm reception. He’s waiting for the room to quiet down, but it doesn’t. “We love you,” somebody shouts. “Get those bastards,” someone else yells. Chasten keeps watching Peter, tries to send him strength, as the crowd keeps shouting love at him and he breaks down a little up there. 

“Go to him,” Lis says suddenly somewhere to his left, and he jumps sky high. Where the fuck did she come from?

“Jesus, you scared me.” 

“Sorry,” she says. “But get the fuck out there, he is _fully_ about to fucking cry on stage.” 

The first step out on stage might as well be the first onto a foreign continent. He feels faint for a moment but trains his eyes on Peter. He can tell when people notice him, because the crowd volume goes up, impossibly. Peter turns and sees him coming, and meets him in a hug. 

“They still want to fight for us,” Chasten whispers right in his ear. “Motivate them.” 

He stays close, one arm around Peter’s back. Peter asks the crowd, shakily at first and then progressively steadier, whether they’re still with them, and if they will be until the nomination and right into the White House. 

The applause thunders through the room and carries them off stage, where Nina meets them. 

“Where’s Lis?”

“She got a phone call and had to step outside. We’re setting up for the gaggle through here,” she says and points to an open door down the corridor, “but it’s going to be at least twenty minutes before they’re ready and Rollie says security doesn’t have any flags, so if you want to go meet some of the crowd you can.” 

Peter nods, then looks at Chasten. “You want to come with?”

“Always.” He squeezes Peter’s hand, then lets go. Time to get to work. 

The crowd is amped up, and there’s barely time to think between the handshakes and the hugs and the selfies, much less worry. Chasten can tell that Rollie and the guys stay closer than they normally do, though, and is honestly grateful. 

The gaggle is more of a press conference than usual, and there’s a lot more press, too. Peter gives the same answer he started in the car, and a dozen variations of it, sincere but never personal. It’s going well, but finally the inevitable question comes up:

“Do you still consider yourself a viable candidate for the Democratic nomination, given the events of the last thirty-six hours, and do you think the public will still consider your candidacy viable?”

Peter hesitates, and Chasten swallows. He must have prepped for this, he must have an answer, this has to have been the first thing he discussed with Lis yesterday, but for endless seconds it seems like nothing's coming. 

“It’s not for me to say whether my candidacy is viable,” Peter says finally. “That’s up to the voters.”

“But do you think that people who may have seen the video, or at the very least know it’s out there and have heard what’s on it, will be willing to elevate you to the presidency?” 

“Again, that’s not for me to say.” Peter pauses, and just as the journalist is about to ask another follow-up, he continues. “I think it’s a fair question. But I suppose I look at it this way: My husband and I are young, we’re still relatively newlywed, we have a healthy and happy intimate life. We would have preferred to keep it private and I think most people would have preferred that it remained private. Most of us, we don’t want to know this stuff about other people, much less see it. But I think most of us also agree that while it’s best kept in private, it’s a natural part of a romantic relationship and we don’t begrudge other people their intimacy. I’ve always maintained that people support a candidate because of what they believe that candidate will be able to do, not who they are or what they do, consensually, in their private life. And I suppose I hope that still holds.”

Chasten bites the inside of his cheek not to grin, because that was a good answer. A really good answer. Those are the sound bites that the journalists will carry out of the room, that news producers will cut together with the moment Peter choked up up stage. It’s impossible to tell if it will shake out well for them, but nobody can accuse them of not trying their hardest. 

When Peter has finally exhausted the press corps it’s almost midnight. As the gaggle is breaking up, Lis appears in the doorway. 

“DJ, could you hang back for two minutes,” she says, and the CNN embed nods and sits back down on his chair in the front row while the rest of the press files out. Lis whispers in Peter’s ear, and once the three of them, Chasten and Nina are the only ones left and the door shut, she turns around, eyes sparkling. 

“I have three sources linking the illegal videotaping and dissemination of the video to America First Action,” she says, and Chasten can feel his jaw dropping. “Two of them are further willing to confirm the order to go through with this fucked-up scheme came via Kimberley fucking Guilfoyle.”

“So potentially from Trump himself,” DJ says, at the same time as Chasten works that out in his own head. Holy shit. 

Lis shrugs. “Don Jr., at minimum.” She hands DJ a piece of paper. “These people are all expecting a call from someone with CNN.” 

DJ gets up. “This is huge. Thanks, Lis.” 

“Thank _you_ for the huge fucking story you’re going to break on this. Call me when you have it and need a comment from the campaign. We’re filing a real big lawsuit Monday.”

He nods and leaves, and Nina follows, closing the door behind them. 

“Okay,” Lis says. “You’re going to be okay. I’ll be back in South Bend on Sunday, I’ll hang around a little closer for the next couple of weeks. When I’m not mud wrestling with fucking Don Jr.” She grins, and Chasten realizes she is actually genuinely looking forward to what comes next. He’s so much in awe of her. 

“Anyway,” she continues, picking up her bag, “I am going the fuck back to New York to pack some more shit than I had time for yesterday, and to find out if the guy I cancelled on tonight will take a rain check for tomorrow. For some reason I’m finding myself really interested in having my ass eaten, so wish me luck.”

She’s almost out the door before Chasten gets sufficiently over the shock to laugh. 

“Okay.” The air seems to go out of Peter a little when they’re finally alone.

“Okay,” Chasten replies with a smile. “That’s one day done.”

“We’ll do better tomorrow,” Peter says. 

“I thought we did pretty well today.”

That makes Peter smile. They meet in a hug, and for the first time in thirty-six hours, Chasten really believes they’re going to be okay. 

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My betas were split over Lis' last line in this chapter – one loved it and the other thought it was insane given the context. I myself was so dementedly happy with it that even though it's kind of against my best judgment I kept it. If you hate it, don't blame NeverJustBusiness who fought valiantly to keep it out. 
> 
> Warning: The epilogue coming up next isn't so much sweet as it is downright treacly - if you'd rather retain a modicum of respect for me I'd just skip it. If that ship has already sailed... Sally forth!


	6. Epilogue

“Is it weird that I’m nervous?” 

Chasten smiles and gives Peter’s tie a final adjustment. 

“No, it’s not weird.” He lets his fingers glide along Peter’s collar and pulls the jacket straight. “It’s an important meeting.” He lets his hands rest on Peter’s shoulders. 

“We don’t know that she’ll ask,” Peter says, smiling wryly. 

“We wouldn’t be sitting down like this if she wasn’t asking, would we?” 

Peter breathes a laugh. “Probably not. Do we say yes?” 

“I guess that depends if you want to do it,” Chasten teases. 

They’ve had this conversation, in bits and pieces, for a month (since before that, really, but they’re not admitting _that_ to anybody), but they’ve never really settled on an answer. There are too many variables. It’s impossible to know until you’re in the room and get a sense of what it’s going to look like. It also was never a given that they’d get the question, so it didn’t make sense spending too much time obsessing over an eventuality. 

It’s not an eventuality anymore, and Chasten can’t picture a situation where Peter doesn’t end up saying yes. He’s not _all_ thrilled about it, honestly. The last month has been... Quiet. No protesters, no crude posters, a lot fewer memeified screenshots from The Video flooding his Twitter mentions. They’ve walked the dogs, gotten into healthier habits, gotten some real work done on the house. Gone to therapy, finally, after putting it off for months because it never really worked with a campaign schedule. Started looking at the files the adoption agency sent over. 

That’s the part that gets him. A quiet life in South Bend raising their children is almost definitely about to come off the table. It’s not like he’s really, truly imagined that their kids would draw with chalk on the sidewalk off North Shore Drive, have a tire swing in that particular front yard or study for the SATs in the upstairs office where he wrote his Master’s thesis. He’s always known they were moving forward, onward. Peter never promised a simple life, and Chasten never wanted or expected it. But for the last month, while life has slowed down – Peter has slowed down – he’s been lulling himself into this sense that maybe… Maybe this would be as far as they went? Maybe they’d stay. Maybe the top-line summary on Pete would remain ‘former South Bend mayor and one-time presidential hopeful’. He knows that’s not really what either of them wants, but right now it feels so damn appealing. 

Peter has always had a good sense of when Chasten is spiraling, and now he takes his hand. 

“Love,” he says, and Chasten doesn’t ever not melt a little when Peter calls him ‘love’. “Whatever we do, we do it together. If there’s even a single doubt you say so. And if this all works out, and we say yes, we’ll ask the agency to get back to us with kids due in February or March, okay?” 

Chasten nods. “Let’s go hear what she has to say.” 

Senator Warren insists they call her Elizabeth, and by the time all four of them have sat down around the coffee table they’re on a first-name basis. They make small talk about their dogs, and then there’s a lull in the conversation. Elizabeth takes another sip of her coffee, then looks Peter in the eye. 

“Pete, we all know why we’re here. I want you on the ticket with me. We want the two of you on the team. Let’s discuss it. I imagine you might have some questions?”

Chasten can’t hide a small smile at the way she phrases her question. The smile stays with him while Peter lays out his reservations against, and conditions for, taking the job, and Elizabeth answers them. She counters every one of Peter’s doubts, and Chasten delights in her attention to detail, mostly because he can tell Peter does too. She and Peter are a match made in heaven, in some ways. In other ways, there are things that could cause a lot of tension. He’s not entirely sure what to make of the sum total, and he can tell Peter isn’t either. What he does know, bone-deep and true, is that Peter would be good at the job Elizabeth is outlining for them now. He could do _a lot_ of good. 

Peter licks his lips. “One final question for now,” he says, and his tone makes Chasten worried. “Have you considered that the…” He falters, which is strange for Peter. “The video. That it might make me a liability to the ticket?” 

Oh. Right. That's an extremely important question.

Elizabeth, to her credit, doesn’t brush it off. “We’ve considered it. We don’t think so. It was handled well. It’s obviously still out there, but we don’t consider it disqualifying. You were in the race long after the whole thing died down.” 

Peter nods thoughtfully, though Chasten isn’t sure his husband is convinced. Neither is he. It makes sense that Elizabeth thinks so, but it didn’t really ever die down, for them. The urgency faded, but it didn’t ever disappear. They pushed through, together, even when things were horrible. Even when they spent months nervous about taking their clothes off before bed, uncomfortable even kissing in a hotel room, much less anything else, trying their hardest to stay emotionally close even as fear pushed them physically apart. A lot has fallen back into place since those first awful weeks and months, but it was hard. They've had some good times, won some votes, but nothing really came out quite right after The Video. If it had, the roles in this meeting could well have been reversed, he knows that.

“I really think you handled the situation very well,” Elizabeth says, looking at Chasten now. “It must have been very painful.” 

“It still is,” he says, and worries for a second that was too honest, but Bruce smiles kindly at him. 

“Would you still be prepared to go into the general after that?” 

He shrugs. “Well, it’s already out there and I don’t see what they could throw at us that could be worse.” He’s not sure it would be pleasant, exactly, but he’s not afraid. They've put in the work, they proved they could do it and they can do it again if they need to. “But it’s not really up to me.” He looks at Peter. 

“Well, it is a _little_ up to you,” Peter says with that slow amused smile that makes Chasten’s insides bubble like champagne. “It’s your family too.” He holds Chasten's gaze. Chasten knows Peter is trying to gauge what he's thinking, but he's not sure it'll come through. Right now all he's really feeling is pretty overwhelmed with how much he loves this man who wants to do so much, but is giving Chasten the power to stop it all. 

“You know,” Elizabeth says, from somewhere far away, “I think the Naval Observatory would be a great place to raise kids.” 

Chasten smiles at her, then looks back at Peter. Maybe it's time for another adventure.


End file.
